All Stories by Sid Perkins
- Earth
A Gemstone’s Wild Ride
Diamonds may be carried to the surface in explosions of gas and rock fizzing up from deep within Earth's mantle.
- Paleontology
Winged dragon
A quarry on the Virginia–North Carolina border has yielded fossils of an unusual gliding reptile that lived in the region about 220 million years ago.
- Earth
Tree rings tell tale of megadroughts
Tree rings in ancient timber show that the Colorado Plateau experienced a 60-year drought in the 12th century.
- Earth
Storm Center
Scientists aboard planes that flew into the cores of Katrina and other hurricanes in 2005 collected unprecedented data on the structure and development of the massive storms.
- Paleontology
Big and Birdlike: Chinese dinosaur was 3.5 meters tall
Paleontologists have unearthed the remains of a gigantic birdlike dinosaur, 3.5 meters tall, that lived 70 million years ago in what is now China.
- Earth
Trouble for forests of the northern U.S. Rockies?
Climate change over the coming decades may cause forests in northern portions of the U.S. Rockies to stop absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and instead become net emitters of the gas.
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How sea turtle hatchlings know where to crawl
Newly hatched sea turtles use a variety of senses, not just sight, to find their way to the ocean.
- Earth
Darker days during Arctic summer
Satellite observations indicate that Arctic regions reflected less sunlight into space in the summer of 2006 than in other recent years, a change that may exacerbate the warming of Earth's climate.
- Earth
Dust Bowl affected midwestern climate
During the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, immense clouds of airborne soil blocked so much sunlight that much of the Great Plains region was significantly cooler than normal during summer months.
- Earth
Storm Norms: Caribbean corals and sediments yield clues to hurricane frequency
The recent increase in hurricane activity in the North Atlantic, a phenomenon that some scientists blame on climate change, actually reflects a return to normal after a lull in the 1970s and 1980s.
- Earth
Ice Age Ends Smashingly: Did a comet blow up over eastern Canada?
An extraterrestrial object apparently exploded above Canada about 12,900 years ago, sparking devastating wildfires and triggering a millennium-long cold spell.
- Earth
Using seismometers to monitor glaciers
Seismic instruments could be used to estimate the amount of ice that shears away from glaciers as they flow into the sea, offering a way to better estimate sea level rise due to the breakup of those ice masses.
